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From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Stay Tuned in Brief. I'm Preet Bharara. On Thursday, Americans across the country tuned in to watch President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump in the first presidential debate of this election season. And there is a lot to talk about. Joining me to discuss is Mark Leibovich. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic and a political analyst for NBC and MSNB.
Mark, my friend, welcome back to the show. Preet, my friend, it's great to be back on the show. So I'm just going to get right into it and I'm of mixed emotions after this debate. You and I are having this conversation at 11 a.m. Friday morning, the day after the presidential debate. And you know, I heard Senator Claire McCaskill on television last night, who obviously is a Democrat and a Biden supporter. And she sort of expressed the dilemma that I think some people have had.
Which is that is I are not to want to pile on. Given Joe Biden's performance, but also not to be pretending either. He had one thing he had to accomplish and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight. Does that mean that Joe Biden is not going to be the candidate? I don't know that I'm not the only one whose heart is breaking right now.
I woke up this morning to a tweet from my friend Ian Bremer. The United States has never seen day after debate headlines like this. Tom Friedman, president Biden is my friend. He must have out of the race Frank Bruney Biden cannot go on like this Patrick Healey. I'm hearing high anxiety from Democrats over Biden debate performance Nick Christoff president Biden. It's time to drop out and then you, Markly, the Vittorself, wrote a piece in the Atlantic overnight.
Simply entitled time to go Joe. I don't have a question yet. Hold on hold your horses before we get to the time to go and whether that can happen, whether that's plausible or whether that's not going to be a good deal. Whether that's plausible or whether that's good or right or proper. My first question to you is, how did it come about the Joe Biden? Did this debate?
Well, first of all, other than the headlines you just read, I thought that, you know, the reception for Biden was really, really glowing, right? Okay, it's a little joke. Yeah. It was I would say, look, I mean, I think Claire McCaskill's concern about not wanting to pile on is, I think the time to pile on is overdue. Look, I would say this. I mean, there's a lot going on here, but Biden should never have run and wait, but no, but I just I just want to get this point out.
Okay, I'm not trying to levied blame. He didn't have to debate. He could have gotten away with not debating. He's incumbent his a challenger got away with not debating one time any of his primary challengers. Correct. Who thought it was a good idea for Biden to debate in the circumstances where there was no audience, which some people think actually was better for Trump and for Biden because Trump arguably in the eyes of some observers came across as more modulated and less crazy.
Who in the Biden world and again, some of them are my friends, but you know, we have to be clear, right? How was this permitted? I would say it was probably driven by Biden himself, whose own, I think, non-self awareness, some would say, hubris here seems to have driven pretty much every decision that his and his and the Democratic party has made over the last year.
I don't think I think if you want to be a little Machiavellian here, I do wonder if some of his top level aides who have been hoping for some kind of clarifying moment didn't somehow get Biden into a June debate. The best thing that he had going for him and the Democrats have going for them was the calendar day of last night, which is June, there is still time. I mean, if this were September, October, there wouldn't be time.
So other than that, I don't know if he had a cold, if he was sounding terrible in rehearsal, but you talk about the cold before you go on, you don't talk about the cold on background to select reporters 20 minutes into the performance. Yeah, you know, it was clear from even before he said a word, I mean, it was like, wow, he doesn't look good. And then he sounded terrible. I don't know, I mean, you do, I mean, I just think that the whole campaign has been a disaster from.
But also a disaster of dishonesty, and this is how Democrats find themselves in a position like this, you know, I think, you know, I think if anything, the next few days will either have Democrats act on whatever clarity last night yielded or they won't. But I think as a logistical matter, there's no way he should have been on debate stage with Trump, and I'm not sure it's going to get much better between now and September, if he can somehow stick this out.
Do you think there was a failure of the staff to prepare him or there was nothing to be done? I'm never, I never love the, oh, his staff is how this is mal, is it malpractice? How dare they? I mean, look, this is Joe Biden's decision. Joe Jill Biden. No, but I mean, in terms of substance, I'm guessing he was prepared exquisitely because the team that prepared him includes people who I respect and who are very smart at these things. So the fault lies with the candidate, right?
Yes. A hundred percent lies with the candidate. Well, actually, no, I would say 80% with the candidate and 20% with those who enable the candidate. And look, I think as a practical matter, he obviously was overloaded with too much information, too much to do.
Well, that's a, so that's a mistake. That's a huge mistake. But it's also, you're dealing with, as we saw last night, some extremely limited mental bandwidth, whether it was the hour, whether it was the cold, whether it was what he can compute and what he can get done in a single exchange. But I mean, I think you need an Olympic debating athlete would have been hard pressed to do the kind of work that someone debating Donald Trump in that environment would have had to do.
I mean, correct the lies attack, defend, no, when to defend, when to, I mean, just have your speeches nailed. I mean, someone like Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom, who is just much more nimble in that environment could have conceivably pulled that off. There is no way in a million years someone with Joe Biden's capacity or at least the capacity he has shown last night and even leading up to last night could have done that.
So why the disconnect other than the interval of a few months between the reception with respect to Biden's performance at the state of the union and his performance last night, I'm prepared to believe. I think that he had a very, very off night, not to minimize clearly the deficiencies that he's experiencing, but is it is it because the state of the union was a teleprompter, although he did add lead a bunch in the state of the union as I recall.
Has there been a deterioration you think between the state of the union and now and to the state of the union performance and the reception of that performance play a role in causing the team to be confident that this was a good idea. Yeah, I mean, obviously in retrospect, I mean, the state of the union was about a million times easier to pull off than last night. I mean, last night was a was a why was it easier to pull off like, you know, 90 minutes is a long time.
But look, for the three people in the audience who didn't watch the debate, return the debate off. Can you articulate why it is that essentially people are talking about Biden getting off the ticket, explain what it was from a political perspective because people will point out that yes, Donald Trump lied his ass all the way through that debate. He said, lots of outrageous and crazy things.
He's been gone off some good lines. He made some good points. But the end of the day as I think people who support Biden and love and respect and admire Biden. I think it was a disaster. Can you articulate why that is. Yes. I mean, if you sort of take the performance art, the visual, the audio part of this. He was just lacking on all levels. He lost his train of thought almost immediately. I mean, there was this answer that I can't read.
I mean, it was just if you watch even the first three or maybe six minutes of the debate. Yeah. It is clear that he was just outmatched just as a specimen. But the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with. I want. But the other guy, so here's a few. I'm trying to push back a little bit for the sake of argument. Yeah. The other guy rambles to the other guy ends a sentence and did last night.
No, we're close to where he should have given how the sentence began. What's the difference? Expectation in trench persona. I mean, Trump say whatever you will about him, he has created a permission structure within the environment of the Republican party, which is its own outrage, which is a topic for another day that gives him a kind of confidence and shamelessness to proceed with knowing habitions whatsoever.
And then, you know, a lot of it is just sort of the physical mental, you know, the vicissitudes of aging and performance and so forth. His voice was horse. So I'm prepared to believe that maybe. Yeah, but here's the other strange thing. I stayed up fairly late and I may have had a couple by the time I watched these clips of him. He did a campaign stop after the debate. Yeah, here it was good. Yeah. And he looked robust and he looked vigorous.
Look folks, what's going to happen over the next couple days? Are they're going to be they're going to be out of fact checking all the things he said? I can't think of one thing he said that was true. Oh, I'm not being facetious. But look, we're going to beat this guy. We need to beat this guy. And I need you in order to beat him. You're the people I've run for.
And this was, you know, after going through a grueling debate, after likely hearing that the reception was poor and maybe that's what jazzed him up. So it is it's very peculiar to me to have to have sounded as feeble as he did and this sort of rambling as he did in the debate. And then after going through that, you know, certainly passes bedtime later that night, 10, 11, 12 o'clock at night, he sounded like the old Biden. Do you have any explanation for that?
I mean, it's part of the same really frustrating two step that the White House has been attempting for two years now, which is to barely let him come out in public. And then quietly say, oh, when you see him in this environment, he's great and great and great. Oh, he's just sharp as a tack. I've never seen him better. I mean, last night when he came out actually in public in a moment where it counted, it was an utter disaster.
It was as bad or worse than any of the worst caricatures we've heard about him. And okay, now I guess we just have to take people's word for it who stayed up till midnight to watch whatever that rally was. I certainly wasn't. Of course, I was busy writing about the debate. By the way, at 11 o'clock, I took a riddle in pill to write with. And you know, Biden should have liked it. I mean, a couple hours earlier. I don't know. We don't have to.
Does that explain the language of some of your texts to me last night work? No, that was before they told me I had to write something. But that's that's for another day. But I was, look, I don't know. I mean, I don't want to get into the. It's I am really, really where weary of the. Oh, but in private. Oh, but when you're not watching, he's good. Trust us on this.
I mean, when you have an 80 year old president, 81 year old president that overwhelming majorities of Americans don't want any part of this age. You got to do a lot better than that. And you certainly have to do a lot better than what Biden did last night. Well, let me ask you this question. Had the shoe been on the other foot and had Trump turned in a feeble, forgetful, soft performance.
Would there have been an avalanche of headlines from stout mega Republicans saying it's time for Donald Trump to get off the ballot? Or would they have just come into line as they always do? They would have come into line as they always do. I mean, this is what you make of that. It's depressing. In some ways, I'm proud to be on the side. Yeah, me too.
Because there's a little bit of not bullshit. There's a lot of not bullshit. I will say this though. I mean, to be a Republican in the age of Donald Trump is to use the old Voclovo Huffle line to live within the lie. I mean, everything you have to lie about the election, not being stolen. And the weaponization of the Biden, just to remember and go down the list.
You know, everyone was like, okay, we Democrats are so honest and everything. Look, I mean, I have had a million conversations with the same Democrats who in public are defending Joe Biden for being young and vigorous and then privately as soon as we're off the record of microphones off. We'll say, oh my God, he is so old. It's like death warmed over. I mean, I've heard that from so many people as close to him as you can imagine.
They work in the White House. They work in the real act. These are senators. These are old friends. It's a fairly universal view and the lack of candor and the frankly lying around this catastrophic issue is almost as damning as the kind of lie that it has to Republican party in every level. So young people, I'm struck by their reaction, Ben Rhodes tweeted last night, Ben Rhodes, former advisor at President Obama in the White House. Imagine what this looks like to young people in this country.
My sampling of young people are my kids who were texting me with gray alarm last night by an already had a problem with young people for various reasons. How's this going to turn out with that population? Well, you know, I have another population to talk about, which is my own kids. However, across many generations of relatives, whether it's parents, cousins, kids, I can give you a little sampling of some of the texts I got like within the first half hour of debate, you know, disaster.
The vomit emoji was very popular from people across generations. Look, I think kids, I think people of the younger generation have a, you know, to their credit have a much higher bullshit, bullshit detection, you know, system than people older. But look, I think this was, I don't think this is a generational, generational specific disaster. I mean, yes, kids, yes foreign audiences. It's another travesty that we're in this position. And I think, you know, Joe Biden is it fault.
This is it at not in the family chat at 925 PM last night at 925 PM last night, a barara child texted in the family chat quote, I give Biden a point 0.01% chance of winning the election. And these are intelligent knowledgeable, you know, over the age of 19 kids. And they couldn't believe what they were saying. Okay, so let's move on from the performance.
And by the way, people are going to gripe and say, well, why aren't you talking about Donald Trump's lies? We will talk about some of that if we have time. But people have to be real because it's the end of June. The conventions around the corner in a piece of few weeks ago, you wrote quote, it is too late for Democrats to do anything about their predicament now barring some 11th hour event that triggers an extremely unlikely swap out of nominees at the Democratic National Convention and quote.
Was this such an event? Yeah, the last I mean, that was that's where my Machiavellian theory comes in, which is that people who know better close to Biden scheduled this June debate as a potential 11th hour event. That could. That's a lowly Machiavellian for me. Maybe, maybe. Let's how about this? I've heard, I may not have heard many theories about that. It is probably too Machiavellian, but you never know.
Look, I mean, last night could have been or I don't know when this is airing, but the third day I debate could have been the 11th hour debate. I did the 11th hour event. Okay, so can we talk about that? Do you agree with me? And I'm not the political expert. That's why I have you here that if Biden insists on staying in the race, which he said he will. And he's through staff already said on Friday this morning that he's going to show up for the second debate to schedule for September.
If Biden against the judgment of others like yourself decides to stay in the race, there's nothing that can be done. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I do. I mean, procedurally and a lot of the texts I was getting and a lot of the communicators I was getting again before an hour was gone on the debate, or how does this work? Where are the mechanics?
Yes, that's what I want to spend some time talking about with you from what I can tell and I've done, you know, as much research as you can in this short period of time, the 99% option of how something could possibly work always involves Biden. So I don't want to get to that in a second because people keep have been texting me, you know, why don't the Dems do something?
There's interesting is the Dems like we had an election. People voted. There's no, there's I guess, you know, people can talk about the 25th amendment, which would be crazy, but that doesn't take someone off the ballot. Right. Right. That's a different kind of mechanism. And it's not going to happen. It's not going to be invoked here. Okay.
So let's now address the question of under what circumstances Joe Biden might consider, which is a crazy thing for me to be saying because I never thought this was going to happen. But now I think you have to consider the possibility. Is it is it that his wife, his closest aides, Kaufman and others, Ron Claim and others come to him or Barack Obama or his former colleagues in the Senate.
Will it take that kind of a demand on their part or plea on their part for Joe Biden to consider withdrawing and and based on what kinds of arguments that they would make. I mean, it's a great straight polling. I mean, look at the polling straight polling if hypothetically Biden is open to stepping back for the good of the country and the good of the election. Poll numbers reflect the kinds of headlines we've seen. What do you think those poll numbers would have to be for Biden to reconsider?
I mean, first of all, the poll numbers have been overwhelming for maybe a year and a half a super, super majority of Americans, including Democrats and Independents over 70% want absolutely no part of Joe Biden running at his current age. And that's only half the story. I mean, the problem is we're going to get to it. It's taking me a while. The question and election. How do you get to Biden?
No, well, the question is, so let's suppose I guess we don't know if you consider stepping away or not. So if not Biden, who? And you have this thorny elephant in the room where a lot of people in the Democratic Party do not think the Kamala Harris would be a strong candidate against Trump. There are some people who might and some people would say that's maybe a misogyny and or racism involved. People say that.
Does Kamala Harris have a substantially better chance to talk about others in a moment? Because in the ordinary course, right, you chose this person to step into the breach of the presidency. If you are unable to serve in what circumstances do you do a an about face on that commitment and that decision and bypass Kamala Harris? Well, it's not it wouldn't be for Biden to decide. I mean, okay, he steps away, but you don't think you'll have a role in in picking the newcomer.
Not necessarily. I think I think if he were to say, I am not running again, but my endorsement is with Kamala. I don't think he would do that. I think he would step away. And I think it would be. Isn't it very weird? Isn't it very weird? And I know a lot of people say this and think this. Isn't it very weird not to endorse your vice president?
Not necessarily. I mean, Obama basically didn't I mean, he endorsed the Secretary of State. And that's why Hillary ran into it. That's why Hillary was a nominee in 2016 and probably part of the reason my Biden didn't run. Okay, so how will it work then? So Joe Biden, let's say decides. I'm going to step back. Can't can he play a role in so far as he can say, well, I'll consider stepping back, but let's talk about who it's going to be.
And if I'm satisfied about who it's going to be, then and only then I'll step back. So that gives him actually quite a substantial role, right? Yeah, I would say that 98% of the role is to step back first. I think, you know, Biden's endorsement or not endorsement of someone would be just part of what would be a very intense campaign over two months, which by the way is is a much longer period of time than most countries pick their own residents.
So I mean, you know, you could do this. You could do some kind of whirlwind campaign and Kamala Harris as vice president would be an obvious frontrunner. But I don't know. I mean, Biden's endorsement of what I'm talking about endorsement. I'm saying he could he could affect the process by saying that my withdrawal is conditional.
And yeah, I think Biden's affected the process entirely too much already by well, I know. I mean, I honestly, he may not agree with you. I mean, look, I might have I might have a lot of bad will for Biden right now because he is still in the race. And you know, he seems at this fairly early hour determined to, you know, continue with this.
I'm utterly as a student of this and who's been doing this a long time. I'm utterly fascinated by what the next 72 hours are going to look and sound like because we're taping this on Friday. You know, the conversation over the weekend. I mean, usually I wouldn't probably shouldn't say this, but I wouldn't in a million years to an into a Sunday show. I've been on Sunday show. I would never tune into it.
But now I actually might watch Sunday shows this weekend. And you know what probably shouldn't have said that, but whatever way the political the way the political world turns. Is it you were thinking that either something dramatic is attempted or happens in the immediate very short term. And then not at all. Or could this sort of sit and simmer for a month and then something happens. I'm guessing you're going to say the former because time is short.
The former, I mean, yeah, time is very, very, very short. I mean, it is. Yeah, I mean, I, I, it have to be in the next few days for next week at the most. I mean, I mean, if you look at the historical parallels here, I mean, Nixon could have hung on. I mean, it was a completely different environment. There was no Fox News. There was no internet. I mean, obviously different completely different world. Nixon for all of his Nixonian things literally Nixonian things.
Was I guess on some level capable of shame, capable of the patriotism necessary to step away. But he ultimately was swayed by a small delegation of Republican leaders from the House and Senate. It was Barry Goldwater was one and then there was the Republican minority leader in the House and in the Senate. I forgot their names. They came up and and basically they said, look, you're draining support.
I don't think this is sustainable. He stepped away. I don't think that would happen now. Obviously, I mean, the Mitch McConnell's and the Mike Johnson's of the world are not of that caliber. And Donald Trump has his own kind of pathologies. But I mean, I'm done and Joe Biden has his own kind of pathology. But I do think look in the case of a party that is capable of shame is capable of decency and actually making decisions along the same kind of moral rubric that we're talking about.
A delegation consisting of Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama and you know, how came Jeffries and Chris Coons. I mean, any any number of people that he will clearly listen to. I think would be. I mean, it would be hard to do this without it immediately getting out. But this is a conversation that I think a real critical mass of high level Democrats. And it's a very small group could should actually think about attempting.
But as you've point out, there's great risk in that because real phrase goes, you come at the king, you best not miss. If you if you do this thing, this intervention. And it doesn't succeed, but it gets out of the intervention was a temp. It doesn't pretty much completely sink the Biden candidacy. Does it bring us even lower than the point zero zero zero point one?
I don't know, but look, but I'll say once again, the shoe on the other foot. If like, I don't know what the statistic is, but it's something like 42 out of 45 people who work directly for Donald Trump. Yeah. See that he's a disaster. And should not be president, not fit to be president, which is kind of similar. Yeah. Oh, it's an area I'm talking about. And you don't Trump is still waving the banner of his party.
Yeah. I mean, you look, you can there are many layers of blame here. I mean, I would start with the layer of blame of what the Republican party has become and what they have enabled and what they have continued to forgive and elevate Donald Trump. So yeah, that that is why we're here. I mean, if that were Nikki Haley on the debate stage last night, you would just have like, I mean, first of all, Biden would probably be getting completely clobbered in the polls, even before last night.
And then, you know, a great many Democrats since and I would assume a massive majority of independence would say, all right, well, you know, Nikki Haley's, you know, I know who she is. I mean, she's a Republican. I mean, the world's not going to completely go. I mean, our democracy isn't going to die. I mean, I guess I'll just vote for her. We're not in that situation. I mean, this is not Mitt Romney or John McCain or Nikki Haley on the other side.
Yeah. All right. So who are the other possibilities in this scenario? Kamala Harris, obviously, because she is the sitting vice president. Yeah. I mean, the debate was in Atlanta last night. I was thinking Jimmy Carter. I mean, he was local. Right. I mean, he's still got an okay. Okay. Okay.
I'm a little sleep. I'm going to throw out some names Gavin Newsom. Would he be in the mix? Yeah, definitely. I mean, he's very, he's been a great surrogate for Biden. He is great on TV. He can process information. He's got a lot of talents. Is that, you know, he's he's not the, he has got a lot of a lot of drawbacks to, but yeah, he's definitely be in the mix.
Is Hillary Clinton in the mix? Probably not. I think, I think not at this point. No. Do you think she would even be interested in being in the mix? Sure. Yeah, I just don't think she would get elected either. I think she never had time getting the nomination. I think she's a lot of pressure to have to potentially lose against the Trump a second time. Yeah, she doesn't need that.
And so who else is there? Secretary of Transportation. Sure. Yeah. Kamala, Gretchen Whitmer, Rafael Warnoch, Josh Shapiro, go down the list. He's been very dangerous for in modern times for a person who may have been in the public eye, but didn't get vetted over a period of time closely by the entire press corps and debate challengers to suddenly arrive on the scene. Unvetted or do you think that's not a considerable concern? I think having a person that Biden's agent.
You say it's less or say far more perilous proposition. I mean, look, I mean, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, I mean, they've been vetted as national figures from big states. I mean, yeah, it's not the same. It's not the same. You have the same, of course, not many people have run for the presidency from positions of great power and fame and local state vetting, even from major states, the substantial press corps and crazy stuff becomes known.
Yeah, I know. Look, my my feeling is this. I mean, okay, Gavin Newsom might have done. I mean, he he broke the COVID via, I mean, French laundry dinner and NAPA and maybe it was Sonoma. I mean, he got in trouble for that. Like that's next to like being indicted and being convicted on 34 Kaminat, I don't know. I mean, Trump kind of thing kind of blows up that. Can you believe it equation?
Now, I was saying the lies. Were you surprised at how Trump performed? Do you have an assessment of his performance? I was not at all surprised. I think he was as bad and as good as Donald Trump is in those settings. That's a very good way of putting it. President Trump. I really don't know what he said at the end of this. I don't think he knows what he said either. Well, yeah, to be honest with you, I barely listened to him because I was just too utterly focused and appalled by Biden.
Do you want to place a percentage likelihood on this scenario, which I, you know, I still thought last night, even though I share the reaction to many people that it's a, it's a long shot. Yeah. And far fetched. It seems less far fetched at this moment. Yeah. How much far fetched is it? I put the chances of him not sticking around at probably about 40% at this point.
40% that's high. Yeah, it's high. It might be, I mean, I think, you know, the reflexes for his serigates like orknock and newsome to go into the spin room and say, Oh, you know, the, the choice is clear. Even Kamala Harris was sent a Luke warm in her, her appraisal of him. Of course, in fairness, Donald Trump is vice president. Isn't even voting for him. The whole thing. She made that point. I mean, she won a television last night. Yeah, I mean, it's true. Yeah.
Yeah. If you, if you're part of the Democratic party elders and you're trying to figure out in the really unfortunate and to me, still largely unexpected scenario of having to replace Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. Who has the best likelihood and chance of defeating Donald Trump? Boy, I mean, there are some really big flaws that pretty much everyone I mentioned has. You know, Kamala has a lot of problems that we talked about.
I mean, Gretchen Whitmer, very attractive on a lot of levels. You know, like Americans have never elected. I mean, women presidents are, that's not, that hasn't happened for a reason. I mean, it would be hard to present. No time like the president. I mean, news. I mean, look, all the, none of these people have pulled particularly well. I just think that someone may be from the Midwest, someone like Sherrod Brown.
People like Bob Casey, kind of a very solid middle of the road Democratic Senator. I mean, he's one of my, well, he's middle of the road. Yeah, Pennsylvania. I mean, just innocuous. Also under the age of 80, right? Well, look, innocuous middle of the road in part is why Biden got elected in 2020 is not. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, he was not all that innocuous because he was an extremely known entity and, you know, it was linked to Obama.
I mean, so I mean, but this would be an unknown proposition, but you know, you can see a Democrat like the Democrats unveiling a ticket like at the same time. I mean, that's the thing about a condensed timeframe. You can say, okay, we're nominating Shapiro Warlock or Whitmer Warlock or something like that just put like a attractive younger, new couple of fresh faces who have done serious work and are well thought of and have real talent.
And I think all of a sudden there's a newness factor. There's a youth factor. The age issue goes away. All the baggage around Biden at this point beginning with his age, but not ending with it would just go away. And, you know, maybe that's a fantasy and, you know, these processes are probably far messier than even I could imagine.
Look, it is exciting to contemplate getting to know someone new. And I don't know, that's what a process like this ideally could yield, but again, that might just be polyannish on my part. Yeah. Well, the candidate you know is often even with flaws and a bad debate performance can often be better than the person you don't know.
I would have said that that's true. There was a much better argument for that about three days ago. Just in defensive, the performance last night and pushing back against this scenario. I barely remember, but I am still old enough to remember in 1984 when Reagan was deemed to be too old to be president again. And he had the debate with Walter Mondale. Reagan came across as sort of absent minded, not coherent, not together. Lots of questions were raised.
You know, nobody forced him off the ticket. He didn't get off the ticket. And he was the oldest president ever to be elected at the time. And he came back in a second debate and he made that famous quip about not using age against his youthful opponent and all went away. And then he won like 49 states. All 57 states. All 57 states. Yeah, remember there was a calf once. He won all 57 states. One all. Why can't this be like that? And then I'll let you go.
Well, Reagan was I think 12 years younger than Biden is now. Reagan was extremely popular compared to Biden right now. It's just the whole. I mean, there was no internet. There was no Fox. It just it was a much quainter 100% different environment. So yeah, I mean, I think Reagan is not a perfect analogy, but it's one that I imagine that the Biden folks will be clinging to who are determined to sort of, you know, play this out. Well, I could talk to you for a lot longer.
Mark, but I know you have more writing to do and more observing to do and more leads to follow. I'm going to go out and write and observe right and observe. It's what I do. For more analysis of legal and political issues, making the headlines become a member of the cafe insider members get access to exclusive content, including the weekly podcast I host with former US attorney Joyce Vance head to cafe.com slash insider to sign up for a trial. That's cafe.com slash insider.
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